


Where They Belong

by SF2187



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8909170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SF2187/pseuds/SF2187
Summary: ROGUE ONE SPOILERS. Jyn tries not to think of what exists beyond the Imperial walls that surround her, but a pilot with something to hide seems to be determined to make her realise that she can be more than a slave to the Imperial war machine.





	1. Defiance

Jyn takes a shuddering breath and holds it, tiny heart beating so loud she fears the dark-armoured monsters will hear and find her. The grass that hides her scratches at her face, the too-green blades damp from the fog that feels as heavy as her own fear.

She watches as her father talks to that horrible man—Krennic, the man whose name always made her mother’s eyes darken. Their words are caught by the wind, she can’t hear anything except the soft, familiar timbre of her father’s voice. She knows she shouldn’t be here, that she should be long hidden, tucked away where the Empire—where _Krennic_ —can never find her. But as she stood at the valley's entrance only minutes ago, she found she couldn’t leave her family behind; some part of her screamed that turning her back on her parents would only lead to regret.

Now she lies hidden among the tall grass, petrified by her helplessness.

Movement catches her eye, and the eyes of her father and Krennic—her mother, robed in red and brown, running towards the group as if she was ignorant to Krennic's arrival until now. Jyn clutches dirt and grass in her little fists, pleading desperately in her head for her parents to walk out of this alive, knowing in her heart that her mother will not let Krennic take them while she still draws breath.

Jyn gulps back a cry as Lyra pulls a blaster from her robes, her mother's face set with a defiance Jyn knows too well. Every inch of her tenses, as if she can do something,  _anything_ to stop Krennic from hurting her family.  As if she can will her mother to lower the blaster and stay alive. But she is only a child, and the Force cannot save every suffering soul.

The laser blast cuts through her mother with a sound Jyn knows will haunt her sleep for the rest of her life. She doesn’t realise she’s screaming until her father’s head whips around, his eyes searching for her with wide, fearful heartbreak. Krennic’s face contorts with that awful smirk.

She pushes herself from the ground, turning to run, but the troopers are already upon her, their death-rattle words monstrous and unintelligible to her ears. Howling, she kicks and punches wildly, but her fists do nothing to the terrible creatures. Her hands ache; the troopers barely seem to notice her flailing. Over her screams, she hears her father pleading with Krennic, his voice cracking with desperation.

A trooper throws her down beside her father, and she scrambles into his arms with her eyes on her mother’s empty face. She waits for her mother to awaken, to open her warm eyes and smile softly as if stirring from a nap. Jyn's entire mind is a wailing, roiling storm of fear, anger, loss. She barely hears her father speak;

“Let her go, please,” he begs, his hand stroking her damp hair.

“Let her go?” Krennic asks, feigning concern. “You’d rather leave the child here all alone to die?”

“Better that than have her become a slave to your Empire.”

Krennic tuts, and Jyn hears the crunch of windswept grass as the man approaches them both. Her father holds her tighter, she clutches at his wrapped shirt.

“Galen, Galen, I’m disappointed. Neither of you will be slaves. You’ll be _safe_ with me." 

"Safe," Galen murmurs bitterly.

Jyn hears the resignation in her father’s next exhale, and although she’s too young to understand exactly what’s about to happen next, she trembles nonetheless.

“Papa,” she whimpers, as if her father has the power to save them both from their future. Parents are supposed to be all-powerful; this is where her childhood begins to fade. Galen cups her head in his hand and whispers into her ear.

“I am so sorry, my Stardust.”

The troopers haul Galen to his feet, and he carries Jyn close to his chest as he stumbles to Krennic’s shuttle, which cuts a void-black silhouette against the milky fog. Over Galen’s shoulder, she catches one last glimpse of what had come to be her home, a place of warmth, laughter, love. She tries to grasp that feeling one last time, to freeze those memories and hold them in her heart so she will never forget what her parents tried to build for her.

As the ship leaps into hyperspace, her eyes meet Krennic’s, and even through her tears his smug expression is as clear as the kyber crystal hidden against her chest. She can almost hear his voice in her head: _You belong to me, now._

She takes a breath, trying on her mother’s defiant gaze, and Krennic chuckles.


	2. Compliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn meets a pilot, and there's something about him.

Tugging at the wrapped bun of her dark hair to secure the knot, Jyn steps into the corridor beyond her cabin and waits for the soft _hiss_ of her door closing behind her. She stands still a short while, watching in silence as a patrol duo of stormtroopers march by, their blasters held low while they trade gossip. They’re not following protocol, but Jyn can’t find it in herself to care about the troopers’ lack of discretion. Not everyone has to live in her lonely, isolated universe.

 _Let some sharp-eyed, rank-grasping lieutenant use the troopers as an excuse to feel important_ , she thinks. Let someone who cares deal with it.

She turns on her heels and walks off in the opposite direction, her eyes on her datapad, her mind far beyond the ship’s hull. Today marks three standard months since Jyn last heard from her father, since she last talked to anyone who felt even an inkling of warmth towards her. Some small, self-destructive part of her can’t help but wonder what exactly _would_ happen if she stole a shuttle and jumped to Eadu to find Galen. She could hear his voice clearly for the first time in a long time, his words finally undistorted by the crackle of deep-space transmissions. Maybe she would find strength in his embrace.

But Krennic’s threats are ever-present in her mind; _I will kill him if you don’t behave_.Though she may fantasize, she doesn’t have it within herself to fight the man who controls her life. Her father would be dead and cold by the time she reached that planet of storms, and her own life’s purpose would suddenly be null. As much as she craves her father’s warm embrace, she’s not naive enough to get them both killed for a hopeless chance to see him again. She still burns from her mother’s abandonment of her and her father on Lah’mu—how could she ever consider doing the same?

Still, it’s tempting.

Krennic doesn’t seem to notice when she enters the bridge, his attention instead on a holographic projection of the very station they orbit, his fist pressed to his mouth in thought. She pushes through her repulsion, her animal hesitancy, and steps into his field of attention. 

“Director,” she says, despising the word as it touches her tongue. He can see it, she knows, the dying hatred in her eyes when she looks at him. Krennic breathes a little sigh at the sight of her, tilting his head in threatening appreciation. There's something about him that terrifies her, a barely-controlled rage that she hopes she never experiences. So many Imperial officers seem the same to Jyn, taught emotions hidden beneath a veneer of indifference, but Krennic holds his frustrations closer to the surface than most. His creased uniform is just a symptom of it.

“You look so like your mother,” he says lightly. She hears the intended threat in his words, and the soft insult. “I’m sure Galen would agree.”

She bites back a retort—that she wouldn’t know, since Krennic keeps holding her father’s messages from her. Instead, she bows her head and begins listing his appointments for the day, ever the subservient adjutant. If she doesn't look up, she can almost pretend Krennic isn't the man she's serving. Almost; as she reads, she can feel the way he watches her, the intensity of his scrutiny like a cold heat against her prickling skin.

“I have a job for you,” he says, talking over her as if she’d never been speaking at all. She tucks her datapad under her arm and waits for him to continue. Maybe, she hopes, this job will be far away from his calculating eyes, and her own self-hatred. Somewhere she doesn't need to worry about keeping her uniform sharp-edged and smooth, where she can breathe freely.

“We’re having issues at Jedha,” he says, and suddenly she’s listening much more intently. By the quirk of his mouth, Jyn thinks he must assume her interest is piqued by his so-called _issues_. If he knew of her interest in Jedha, of the stories her mother once told her of the planet's relationship with the Force, she doubts he’d look so smugly upon her interest. He likely would have never brought this mission up at all.

 _Or_ , she realises, _this could be one of his manipulations_. A test of some sort, designed to catch her out.

“What kind of… issues?” she asks.

“The locals aren’t particularly overjoyed at our requisitioning of the kyber crystals.” He waves a hand at a protocol droid and the holographic battle station fizzes, morphing instead into a holo-recording of the streets of Jedha. Blasterfire overexposes the footage, the holo-vid flaring white with each burst. Through the light and chaos, Jyn can make out the shapes of cloaked rebels ambushing the stormtroopers.

“What do you think of this?” Krennic asks, leaning over Jyn’s shoulder as she watches the fighting unfold. His hand grips her other shoulder, his grasp strong as his fingers dig into her.

She takes a moment to consider, and to plan her words. “By fighting back, they’re causing more death than necessary,” she says, slowly. “They’re delaying my father’s work.” _And therefore, his freedom_ , she thinks. Breaking his hold on her shoulder, she turns to face Krennic. “What do you want me to do?”

“Go to Jedha. Gather information on where these attacks are originating, and find me a solution to this problem.” He clasps his hands together before him, tone borderline friendly as his cape flutters at his legs. “The sooner we get this ironed out, the sooner you and Galen can be reunited. Won’t that be a lovely day?”

“Yes, Director,” she says, keeping her voice even. “I’ll head to Jedha immediately.”

“There’s a shuttle in the hangar ready to take you now." The false camaraderie in his voice fades. "Don’t disappoint me, Erso.”

“I won’t,” she says. Krennic waves a hand to dismiss her, and instantly she can tell that her presence no longer matters to him now that he's doled out her task. Her existence is no more than a passing annoyance; she’s below human to him, nothing more than a tool.

Sweeping from the bridge, she tries to avoid asking herself if she really _is_ worth as much as Krennic thinks. It’s hard to believe otherwise anymore. Without her father to keep her grounded, she’s begun to feel the bright parts of herself slip through her fingers, lost to the void where all good things eventually disappear. The entire galaxy is being strangled by the Empire, and she with it.

She makes her way to the hangar quickly. There’s not much she craves more than escaping Krennic’s territory, even if it means being thrown into an active war zone, and even if it's at his behest. Her designated shuttle is easy enough to pick out, engines already running and a pilot leaning against the hull. He watches her without emotion as she approaches, his gaze impossible to read.

“Erso?” he asks. She catches an accent; not from the core, then.

“You’re not my usual pilot." 

Raising an eyebrow, he says, “Don’t look at me, I’m just following orders.”

Pausing a moment before heading into the shuttle, she takes in her new pilot’s fierce gaze. She stands above him on the ramp, level to him when she normally wouldn’t be. His eyes, she notices, are as dark as his hair, and there’s a metallic chill to them. This is a man who has seen death; who has caused death. _Can he see the same in me?_

“What’s your name?” she asks. Though she isn't one for conversation, there's something about this man that she feels compelled to figure out—what, exactly, she couldn't say. Not yet. His name feels like a good start, however.

“Joreth Sward.” He shrugs slightly, frowning just as slightly. "And I already know yours. Introductions over?"

Joreth feels different to the Imperials she’s used to being around. Maybe it’s the roughness of his face, or his accented words. Maybe it’s the ferocity that feels as if it’s radiating from him like a star's fire. _He’s not one of us_ , she thinks. But then, neither is she. Whether that means he's someone she can trust, or quite the opposite, she can't yet tell. 

“Okay, Sward,” she says, patting the blaster at her side for reassurance. “Let’s get out of here.”


End file.
